Mojave (21 page)

“You son of a bitch!” I roared. “Those two lovers are dead and all you care about is that damned carriage.”

He was getting to his feet when I decked him again.

But that was all I had in me. My left arm commenced to spasming and I twisted and groaned and fell to my knees. I saw Jingfei, her porcelain face streaked with tears. She wasn't bawling no more. She was looking at me with either bewilderment or praise. Then I saw fear in those lovely eyes, and I saw her mouth open, but never heard her warning.

That's when Whip Watson's blacksnake whip tore through my waterlogged and already ruined blue shirt.

With a yelp, I fell facedown in the Devil's Playground. The whip sliced again. I tried to get up, but something burned across my back, and my mind kept telling me,
Stay down, stay down, he can't castrate you if you're lying facedown.

But I was so riled, so mule-headed, and now Jingfei started screaming, so I kept trying to get up, and my back was burning and bleeding, and my shirt, wet now from blood and the downpour, already in tatters. Suddenly, just like that, it stopped.

Jingfei wasn't screaming. Whip wasn't cussing. His blacksnake wasn't slashing. Even I wasn't saying nothing, but I stopped trying to get up, and just lay there in the sand, staring at Jingfei and the bloody body of the late Bonnie Little. Doc John Milton had run over, and he had both hands on Jingfei's shoulders, maybe to keep her from charging into Whip's whip to protect me. Juan Pedro and Mr. Clark and three or four of Whip's men stood on that hill, too. Not speaking. Staring. Fear shone in their eyes, too.

“No.” That was Whip's voice. “It ain't right.” Heard footsteps in the sand, and seen Whip's black boots and black trousers. He had moved between me and Jingfei and John Milton. “You don't kill a man whose life you've saved. It ain't right. Mister Clark.”

Mr. Clark, I figured, could kill me since he hadn't saved my life. I pushed myself to my knees. If I was going to die, it wasn't going to be lying down in this sand.

“Hand me your Spencer.”

Mr. Clark tossed him that big carbine.

“Doctor Kent.”

John Milton left Jingfei in a hurry. Whip threw the big gun to him.

“Kill him.”

“Sir?”

“Kill Micah Bishop. Shoot him down like a dog. Or I'll flay the hide off you.”

Jingfei started to stand, but I shot out, “No.” To my surprise, she stopped, and even a bigger shock to me, I managed to climb to my feet.

Whip looked back at me. Give me some satisfaction that his lip was bleeding.

John Milton cocked the Spencer. He shrugged. “Truly, I am sorry to have to do this, my good man, but you see how things are.”

I walked a bit downhill. To get closer.

“I tell you what, old chap,” John Milton said. “To make things sporting, you run up that hill.” He pointed to the other hill, meaning I'd have to run down the one I was halfway up, then climb the other one, the one that probably rose two hundred feet. “I shall let you reach the top.”

“Kent,” Whip Watson said, “if he lives, you die.”

“Fear not, my new friend,” John Milton told Whip. “I have had much practice at these kind of things.” He was already wetting the front sight with his thumb. “Shooting uphill makes things sporting, but during the late war, I gave many Transvaal Boers the same chance I'm giving you, Mister Bishop.” The peckerwood even winked at me. “You had better hurry,” he said softly.

So I ran. Well, running ain't the best way to describe it. More like weaved and staggered. Even tripped a couple of times. You'd run, too, especially if you knowed what a .56-.50 round will do to a human body at close range.

The Irish twins from Savannah shouted, “Run, Micah, run!”

Breath heaving, heart pounding, me sweating, my left arm was bleeding again, back burning and also bleeding from Whip's blacksnake, I did my best to make the top of the hill. Funny thing is that briefly, for just an instant, I thought that I might even have a chance.

Reached the top.

Then John Milton shot me dead.

Dear reader, I reckon it won't shock you to learn that I wasn't dead. But, by jacks, how I died! Once again, I have to thank the spirit of Big Tim Pruett for saving my hide. You see, having seen
Henry IV, Part I,
I knowed plenty about how actors died on stage, and, now that I think on things, having seen as many people shot to death as I've seen, that also played a bit into how I died so fine.

Anyhow, as soon as I heard that Spencer roar, I arched my back real good, leaped off my feet, but not too far, and let out a groan, put some rattle of death in my breathing, fell hard to the ground, and rolled down the hill, not all the way down, because rolling that far might have made me sick, and then I'd be on my knees and vomiting when Whip or John Milton or some of Whip's boys rode up top to make sure I had gone under.

Rolling down the dune, I also bit my bottom lip. Likely, that helped persuade whoever would ride up that hill—I heard the horse blowing real hard—because blood had poured down my chin from my mouth, so it must have looked like I'd been lung shot. I held my breath, tried not to shake, move my eyes, do nothing that might give me away.

“Looks deader than dirt to me!” Mr. Clark called out.

“Make damned sure,” came Whip Watson's voice from the other side of the dune.

Which is when I figured how I was about to be real dead, because the horse's snorting growed louder, and I heard that the sand sliding underneath the weight and pressure, the horse snorting, the rider saying, “Easy, boy, easy,” and then I figured if I opened my eyes, I would see Mr. Clark's pistol, and then I'd see nothing else at all.

“Open your eyes,” Mr. Clark whispered.

That's when I wished I had watched more actors die on stage.

I tasted blood in my mouth, figured I'd soon taste more. My eyes opened. Yep, there was Mr. Clark's pistol.

Flame shot from the barrel, and I smelled brimstone, and felt sand kick into the side of my face that had already been stung from those splinters from the horse-bus. My ears rang. I sucked in a deep breath. The gun roared again, and I felt sand sting my cheek that hadn't been stung by splinters.

Over the ringing in my ears, my eyes now closed, I heard Mr. Clark say, “You owe me one.”

His horse lunged back up the hill, and I realized that I had pissed in my pants—but since I'd done that already after the late Buster had beat the hell out of me, it wasn't that bad. Like my ruined blue shirt, those striped pants was already ruined.

Yet . . . I was alive. Thanks to John Milton, who was either as good a liar and as bad a shot as I was, or had intentionally saved my life. And thanks to Mr. Clark, who had definitely saved my hide.

For the time being. If I run off, and Whip Watson or Bug Beard or somebody else come up to check my corpse, and didn't find me, then Mr. Clark and John Milton would feel Whip's whip, and, most likely, a few of Whip's .45-caliber bullets. The way my back and arm felt, I didn't wish that on nobody, excepting Whip Watson and Candy Crutchfield and that miserable cur Corbin who had almost got me hung in New Mexico and those sore losers from Fort Mojave who I held responsible for getting me in this fix. Besides, where was there to run to? Back across the dunes? Try to find Candy Crutchfield so we wouldn't die of thirst alone in the Devil's Playground? No, what I needed to do was stay put, for the time being.

So, closing my eyes, I lay still, and tried not to breathe too much just in case somebody else come up that hill to make sure I was indeed dead. I could hear that commotion on the far side of the dune, some cussing from Whip, sobs of girls, mules being harnessed. I tried to think of what Mr. Clark had done, tried to put some reason into it.

It couldn't be that he liked me. I don't think we'd said more than five-six words to each other in the short spell I'd knowed him. We hadn't played cards together, because then there would be no damned way he would have wasted two shots on my account. Maybe he'd liked Peach Fuzz, who was a good kid. Maybe, like Peach Fuzz, he had started to fancy one of the women Whip was woman-napping.

Some bad men, I decided, ain't all bad. I'd like to think people think the same of me. Maybe Mr. Clark had seen too much of Whip Watson, what he was doing to people. Bringing women who thought they was gonna get hitched only to learn at some point that they was to be forced into the tenderloin. That rankles . . . even the hardest soul.

Then another thought come to me, and that one was that maybe I didn't owe Mr. Clark nothing, maybe he was as wicked as Whip Watson. I thought he might have left me alive in the Mojave so that the Devil's Playground could torture and torment and eventually deal me a right hard death.

That's what I was thinking when I passed out.

 

 

'Twas practically dusk when I woke up, my arm throbbing, but not bleeding, my back burning like somebody had poured coal oil on my hide. Strange sounds come from the other side of the dune, but it sure didn't sound like teams being hitched and women crying and Whip Watson cussing.

No, even in my poor, wretched condition, I knew that Whip and his boys—and Jingfei and all those other poor girls—was long gone, bound for the Painted Hills and Calico, California. I got to my knees, head bent down, waiting to throw up, but nothing come up. Moved a bit on my knees, then tried to stand.

Fell the first time. Second. Even third. Fourth try, though, saw me make a few yards up that dune, which didn't even look like it had ever been rained on. That's something about this Mojave country. It can come up the biggest turd float a body ever seen, and a few hours later, the place had turned back to its original condition, which was drier than an old buffalo bone.

I forced myself to stand back up, and head up the dune, my boots digging and slipping and sliding in the sand. Up I went, then flat on my face I fell. After two more falls, I just kept low on the ground, and climbed.

Climb up, slide down.

Climb up.

Slide down.

Climb up.

Slide down.

Every three feet I'd make it up that dune, I'd lose a foot, sometimes even two. Yet you ask any of the nuns who remember me from the Sisters of Charity orphanage in Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory, and they'll swear in front of the Mother Superior and the archbishop from Lamy that Micah Bishop has the head of a mule.

As the moon rose, I reached the top of the dune, and looked down.

Went out of my head again. I started screaming, waving my arms over my head, yelling, cussing, then I was falling and rolling down the hill—all the way down, not stopping myself, and certain-sure not playacting no more.

I got up, everything around me still spinning, and tried to throw up, but there wasn't nothing in my belly but air. And when you get those dry heaves, it sure plays havoc on bruised ribs, a flayed back, and a hole in your left forearm. Only thing to come up came out of my nose, and that was snot. But here's how crazy I was. I still stood up, and kept waving my hands, and kept yelling, dizzy as I was, and somehow I managed to scare off all those critters.

Wolves or coyotes, I couldn't tell. Ravens? Turkey buzzards. Things that lived off the dead, and there was plenty of dead things between those two dunes.

Can't rightly recollect how much time passed. The moon and stars lighted the scene. All I knew was that the animals had all gone. Oh, I doubted if they'd gone far. Probably just sitting atop one of the dunes, watching, waiting for me to leave them to their supper.

Two of the omnibuses was missing. From the tracks I made out, I figured Whip had loaded the girls into them, rode off with all the mules and horses not killed. Left the dead where they'd fallen, including the three dead brides-to-be in the back of the horse-bus that had been riddled with bullets.

Sometimes, you find strength somewhere deep inside you that you never knowed you had. I could barely walk, yet I went up that next dune to the already bloating carcasses of two magnificent Percherons. I didn't drag Bonnie Little. I scooped her into my arms, and carried her down the slope. Didn't fall. Don't even think I stumbled. I brung her to the remaining bus, and got her inside, putting her hands across her chest, folded, trying to make her look as peaceful as possible.

Turned away, then looked at her again. At her dress. I reached, pulled my hand back, cussed myself, reached again, but I just couldn't do it. Peach Fuzz had told me she had a money belt underneath her corset. A five-hundred-dollar dowry. But I couldn't rob the dead. Not her, at least.

That was something else I learned about me that night.

A few minutes later, I was back beside that ripped-up Columbus carriage, catching my breath, trying to find more of that strength. Which come. Just like that, it come, and I hadn't prayed or begged or found some Manhattan rye whiskey to drink. Next, I was bringing poor Peach Fuzz back down the hill.

Him, I laid right beside precious Bonnie Little.

Folded his hands over his chest, then thought better of it. I brung his right arm down to his side. Taken Bonnie's left arm, and let it drop. And clasped their hands together.

Never knowed how sentimental I was, neither, till that dreadful evening.

After that, it was sort of hit and miss. Tan Vest was easy, since he had gotten killed right beside the wagon. The two Zekes, Candy Crutchfield's and Whip Watson's, I wasn't so careful with, but got them into the bus, too, though I cussed both of their corpses for all the blood they got on my already ruined clothes. The Mexican pinned under the dead Arabian I couldn't do nothing with. Horse was too heavy, and so was the dead rider, and the sand around them had hardened like adobe bricks.

“Hell,” I remember saying, “coyotes got to eat, too.”

So I moved to one of Candy's vermin who'd gotten his head blowed off.

One guy I was dragging to the bus when I dropped his corpse, eased down to my knees, and bent over to look at him closer.

“You son of a bitch,” I told him. “That's my gun.”

So I unbuckled the rig holding Spiller & Burr that I'd won in a game of chance at Beal's Crossing and then had loaned to Peach Fuzz. Strapped the belt across my waist, put the holster in a comfortable position, and left that guy where I'd dropped him. Hell, the vultures had already picked out . . . oh, never mind. Still makes me sick just thinking about it.

Kept at it, calling myself Micah Bishop, Undertaker of The Devil's Playground. Just . . . well, I wasn't thinking clearly, till I'd discovered another dead body by another dead horse. What I also found was a canteen.

Whip Watson hadn't been too careful hisself, but you can't blame him. He was in a valley in the Devil's Playground between two sand dunes, and all around him was dead men, dead women, dead animals. Quick as he could, he left. I stayed. With the moon up. And coyotes and wolves and ravens crying out their impatience. I stayed. Done my duty. That's something else I learned about Micah Bishop.

When I had loaded the last body into the omnibus, I taken a swallow from the flask I found in the inside vest pocket of Tan Vest, toasted the dead, and poured the rest of the forty-rod on the floor.

Other things I'd discovered was Doctor John Milton's black bag, some cash and coin, a Hamilton pocket watch, a deck of cards that was so badly marked it wouldn't have even fooled Sister Rocío. Several canteens, though most of them was empty.

Tan Vest has also had some Lucifers in another one of his pockets, so I struck the end on the iron rim of the wheel, stepped back, and tossed the match into the coach.

The rotgut whiskey caught, and flames began lapping across the floor. The bus wasn't as finely waxed as the Columbus carriages Whip Watson had bought in Prescott, but they'd been out in the desert sun a long time. Went up like a tinderbox. That's all I needed to see, all I could stomach, and I started staggering away, fast as I could make myself go, up the hill, hearing the coyotes or wolves yipping at the building fire.

“Shut up!” I yelled. Those animals still had plenty of dead horses and mules, and three or four bodies I just didn't have the strength to move.

The animals didn't listen. I kept walking, though now all my muscles began to ache, and I had to use the Marlin rifle as a crutch to make it up that final dune.

Odd. The night was beautiful, all the clouds having moved on, and the desert sky is always so majestic after a thunderstorm. Stars lighted a path across the midnight sky. Looked like a painting you might find in a storybook.

Behind me, down below, however, was no storybook.

Stopping at the summit, I turned. Made myself look down at the coach, now engulfed in a roaring waves of orange.

I didn't worry about nobody seeing the fire, or even smoke. By this point, I was too tired to care about anything.

Flames lit up the valley of sand. I didn't smell anything—likely a real good thing—and I watched for several minutes.